Third Place Thinking in Sports and Community Facility Design
Dion is the Principal Architect and Director at 106 Architects and Third Place Thinking – a leading architect and thinker for sports, community, leisure and recreation facilities.
As a former Black Stick, Olympian, and New Zealand Commonwealth Games hockey silver medallist, Dion has an innate knowledge for sports and community projects and the high-performance environment shaped by years of personally experiencing local and international facilities.
Since retiring from international hockey in 2005, Dion has successfully combined his two passions: sports and architecture, establishing 106 Architects in Australia and New Zealand to focus and specialise in the master planning, design, and delivery of sports-related facilities for high performance and community groups.
Third Place Thinking is the ideology behind the practice that is generating a new approach to the way we design and think about sport architecture.
Based in Melbourne, working across the two countries, Dion’s experience covers over thirty-years with multiple sports and all scales of venue.
For Dion, good design is as much about being fit-for-purpose, sustainable, affordable and accessible – as it is to encourage a sense of community and social connection.
The idea that the high performance, informal, and grass-roots activities can help build and strengthen our communities, is central to Dion’s thinking.
The L&D Session will run for 45-60 minutes and include Dion’s presentation plus of time for Q&As. For those who can’t make the session, it will be recorded.
Key items for presentation and discussion will include:
- Design Process – The Functional Design Brief
- Transformation & Evolution – The Design Team Role
- Getting More Out of Your Design – Social & Participation Outcomes
- New Language – ‘Best Practice’ and Inclusivity
- Impact of COVID on Design – The Future?
- Methods of Delivery – Procurement
- Factors of Design
